Prof. Ben Shlomo Z"L

Palestinians have no rights at all, Ben-Shlomo told the leftist.
Prof. Yosef ben-Shlomo, who died over the weekend, was one of the most interesting intellectuals in Israel. 

In a country where being a professor is almost synonymous with being a leftist pinhead, Ben-Shlomo was one of the most interesting and most entertaining of the counter-exceptions. Born in Krakow, he had been a professor of philosophy at Tel Aviv University, and after he retired virtually the entire philosophy department at TAU was taken over by far-leftist anti-Zionists, becoming politically one of the worst academic departments in all of Israel.

Ben-Shlomo, while not religious himself as an adult, was a student of Gershom Sholem, wrote about Sholem, and also wrote extensively about Rabbi Kook (the intellectual godfather of religious Zionism).  While Ben-Shlomo had been a leftist before the Six Day War, thereafter he found himself in the position of arguably the leading anti-Left intellectual in Israel.  He often appeared on television and in the rest of the media.  Haaretz dubbed him the "Yishayahu Leibowitz of the Right", referring to the far-Left but extremely religious anti-Zionist professor of philosophy and chemistry at the Hebrew University, who died several years ago.  While Leibowitz was a total moonbat politically, denouncing Zionists as "Judeo-Nazis", his writings about rabbinic sources and the Torah portions are insightful and deep, and frankly they are part of my regular study tools.  Ben-Shlomo, who was something of a prophet of secularism and was an admirer of Spinoza, was completely on the mark politically when it came to national issues.  He also was a sharp critic of the emerging emptiness of secularist culture in Israel.  At the same time, he endorsed the mainly-religious Gush Emunim movement that built settlements.  After Oslo, he emerged as one of the most militant opponents of the "peace process".  He should have won the Israel Prize many times over, but the prize is usually reserved for far-leftists (like Shulamit Aloni and Yigal Tomarkin).

Moonbrits

<< Future member of NUJ.

So let's see if we have this clear.

First, BBC reporter Alan Johnston gets himself kidnapped in Gaza by the same "activists and militants" his TV station so adores. Then according to his apparent captors he gets murdered in cold blood as an act of protest against the Israeli occupation of Gaza, which the BBC has yet to discover was ended.  Then his colleagues in Britain's National Union of Journalists (NUJ) decide to a strong stand. In favor of terrorism.  Reallly.

With 35,000 members, the NUJ officially declared a boycott of tomatoes,  cucumbers, oranges, and other products from Israel.  Next time the IRA blows up buildings in London, the NUJ will demand that all visiting Israeli professors in the UK be jailed.

By doing so, it joins the other Moonbrits already denouncing Israel, which is the only Middle East regime that is NOT an apartheid regime, for being an apartheid regime.  The Wall Street Journal comments:

'For British journalists working in the field, the NUJ's political grandstanding cannot be entirely welcome. Besides the further damage this does to their reputation among Israelis, they also have little choice but to eat those dreadful Zionist tomatoes. We suspect, too, that Mr. Johnston's kidnapping has probably made them feel secretly grateful for the safety and freedom that living in stable, democratic Israel affords.'

Islamofascist terrorists blow up the London tube trains?   The Moonbrit response is to condemn dem Joos.  If bin Laden and his friends ever decide to protest the illegal British occupation of Redding by crashing some planes into Westminster, the NUJ will call for an appropriate response in the form of making British Jews wear yellow stars...

The "Mobius" Mystery

Moses is his Pusher?
    Are you a Jew who believes that the highest priority for Jews is promoting recreational drugs, rock and roll music, and far-leftist anti-Semites?   

   Well, if so, boy do we have a web site for you!

 

 Mobius in progressive tallis:

  

It is called "JewSchool" and can be accessed here.  It is the baby of one Dan Sieradski, who calls himself "Mobius",and  who describes himself as an "Orthodox Anarchist".  I guess he has not gotten around to reading what Pirkei Avot and the sages had to say about anarchy.   He attends Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo, a Carlebach-tradition yeshiva.  Sieradski is ferociously anti-Israel and writes glowingly of such critters as Norman Finkelstein.  He uses the term "progressive" like most other people use punctuation marks. He denounces those who criticize leftist anti-Semites.  He claims to be an artist and a poet – here he writes a poem about "cellphone sluts."   Here is one of his deeper ideas.  The Jerusalem Post recently cited him and his pro-hashish lobbying efforts when debating whether marijuana is in fact "kitniyot hametz " and so prohibited on Passover for Ashkenazim.   He organizes hip hop "music" events in Jerusalem.

 

   Sure, Tikkun and its pseudo-rabbis promote the same thing, but what is interesting about JewSchool is that its owner seems actually to know a thing or two about Judaism, in spite of his PC goofiness.  Unlike Michael Lerner, he seems to have actually glanced at some pages in the Bible.  He writes for some other web sites for Jewish stoned hippies, where he celebrates anti-Israel hoodlums.  On the other hand, he has called for boycotting sources of hashish associated with terror groups, preferring nicer suppliers:

 

' For some Israeli hash heads, the boycott is a way of expressing their dismay at the war and Hezbollah's relentless rocket attacks on Israel. "The thing is, if you buy your drugs from Lebanon, you could well be funding terrorism through Hezbollah against Israel," one user commented. "Who among us would want that on their conscience? Not me!" Another young boycotter commented: "It's bad enough that they're trying to blow up our country. I'm not going to pay them to do it."'

 

   All of which brings us to the mystery of his web nickname "Mobius".   

   I have not seen it explained but I would like to venture a hypothesis.  Maybe Mobius will confirm or deny it here in a comment.  I suspect that "Mobius" may be shorthand for the expression "Moses is my Pusher!"